I’m not an actor. I did, however, give it a shot for a while. What I really love is comedy. I’ve taken a million improv and sketch writing classes and I perform on a pretty regular basis. It’s what I love to do. The problem is though, you don’t get paid to be a comedian. At least not for a while. In fact you have to pay to take classes, so it costs money to become a comedian. I wasn’t a fan of living with negative income, so I started thinking of ways to make money. What were all of my comedian friends doing to make money? Acting. I like acting. I did a bunch of acting in high school and college, so this made sense. If you’re a comedian, you can make money acting in commercials and that provides a way to keep performing. Why not? I thought this was brilliant. What if I ended up getting on a sitcom? Then I’d end up earning money while making people laugh, which is what I wanted to do in the first place. It’s a win, win! However, upon actually perusing acting I realized a few things that totally BLEW.
1. Getting a SAG card is awful.
Most actors start out their acting career by doing extra work. This is the first and most logical step. You get on set, you get to learn the lingo, and you might earn SAG(Screen Actor’s Guild) vouchers, which will make you SAG eligible. You want to be a SAG actor because that means you get paid more. Whether you’re an extra or an actor getting real gigs, the pay is much higher if you’re in a union.
There are only a few ways to become SAG eligible. I’m not a SAG representative, so there may be more, but these are just the ones I know of. The only two ways I know to get a SAG card are if you get three SAG vouchers from doing extra work or if you get “Taft-Hartleyed” in by being booked on a union job as a principal performer.
Yuck.
So, either I needed to somehow book a principal role in a union project or I needed to collect three magical tokens to join. I ended up doing the extra work path and do you know how many vouchers I got in two years? NONE. Nope, not one. Years later, by a miracle, I got “Taft-Hartleyed” in because some friends were making a web series and they asked me to be in it. So, did I become SAG? No. By that time I no longer was interested in becoming an actor and I didn’t want to pay the 3,000 dollars that it costs to join. Yup, it’s three grand to join SAG and you still have to pay dues when you get booked to work a SAG job.
2. Making any money at all is awful.
Every experience is different. You may find flexible high paying work right off the bat, but that’s not likely and that certainly wasn’t my experience.
Try working a full time job and going to auditions at the same time. Unless your boss is the most amazing boss of all time and just lets you leave constantly, this isn’t going to happen. That pretty much eliminates you making a ton of money for a living. You’re pretty much restricted to living a life of poverty. The best way you can make money is to become a SAG extra, but your hours are horrible. Sometimes you work 18 hour days and sometimes you work two. The amount of work you get is horrible too. Every once in a while you get booked on a film and work several weeks in a row. However, most of the time it’s very hard to get several days a week of work. Most of the time you work one to two days a week of work and that’s a couple hundred dollars you’re making. Have you ever had to pay rent in LA? Try paying rent here while only making $100 a week.
If you can’t become a SAG extra, you’re restricted to weekend jobs or freelance work. If you have a useful skill, freelance work is the best option. If not, I hope you have experience waiting tables. No? Then I weep for you friend.
3. Getting an agent is a pain
Everything is so circular in this industry. You want an agent, you need a good acting resume. To get a good acting resume, you need to get good roles which usually requires a good agent. You can try and prepare by having a good reel before you move to LA, but honestly no one gives a crap about the clips you have from the student films you did in Ohio.
If you want an agent you can go through the grueling process of sending out packets with your head shot and resume or you can pray that someone gives you a referral. When you do finally meet one it’s hard to tell whether or not they’re genuine as well. Even if they’re registered with the the right people and they’re in the better business bureau, some are still scam artists and if they’re not scam artists they still probably won’t get you many auditions because you have zero experience. It took me a very long time to get an agent and when I did…
4. All agents do is insist that you take acting classes and get more head shots
He spent all his rent money on head shots
So, you have no money, but you finally got an agent!!! Whoo! He sent you out out on ONE audition in the first month you’re with him. It’s a cell phone commercial for a company you’ve never heard and of course you didn’t get it. Now he’s insisting on more expensive head shots and an expensive acting class. When you’re finished taking that class, what will he do? He’ll tell you that your hair is shorter now and that you need new head shots and you should probably get into another acting class ASAP.
He makes you no money but insists that you spend hundreds. An acting class costs around $300 to $1000 for eight classes. The average head shot costs between $350 and $2000 for a reputable photographer.
5. People don’t take you seriously
Hey! This guy is a serious actor.
Go out and tell everyone you know that you’re an actor in LA. Gauge their reactions. Has anyone ever been excited about what you do? No. In fact, most employers won’t hire you if you’re an actor. They find actors to be flaky and unreliable. Also, go ask a girl’s father for her hand in marriage and tell him that you’re an actor. See what he says. I’m sure he’ll be over whelmed with the success you’ve had with that YouTube web series about whales you’ve been “working on” for a year.
It’s even hard to get an apartment as an actor. Landlords want steady paychecks to ensure that you’ll pay your bills. This wouldn’t be so bad if hundreds of other actors hadn’t ruined this for you by breaking their leases when they got discouraged and moving back home after three months of making no money.
People don’t tend to like actors unless they’re successful. It’s a thing.
6. It takes a lifetime to succeed
He just got his first role yesterday.
I’ve heard several stories of people moving to LA and succeeding immediately. I heard that Yvonne Strahovski was here three days and she got a role on Chuck. I’ve heard that Charlize Theron got discovered in a bank when she was yelling at a teller. All of these stories gave me hope, but honestly it’s not helpful to hear things like that.
Ask anyone how long it takes to succeed as an actor. The answers vary. Someone people tell you three to five years, some five to ten and others will say ten to twenty. If you want to be an actor you have to be ready for the slow painful grind of poverty, loneliness, worry about your “look” and fear. It’ll take way longer than you expect and you’ll want to go home all the time.
Now, I don’t say all this because I don’t think you should be an actor. I just want to emphasize that you should discover what you really want to be for a living. Get to the root of what you love doing and pursue that. If you don’t actually want to be an actor in Hollywood then don’t come out here. It’s not for the weak of heart. It’s tough and should only be for people who want to be an actor more than anything else.
Do you agree? Have you had an easy or a difficult experience trying to be an actor? Did people sugar coat it for you? Was that a disservice or helpful?
photo credit: <a href=”http://www.flickr.com/photos/cthulhuwho1/4889471455/”>California Cthulhu (Will Hart)</a> via <a href=”http://photopin.com”>photopin</a> <a href=”http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/”>cc</a>
photo credit: <a href=”http://www.flickr.com/photos/bolg/19948003/”>bolg</a> via <a href=”http://photopin.com”>photopin</a> <a href=”http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/2.0/”>cc</a>
photo credit: <a href=”http://www.flickr.com/photos/donnagrayson/102635884/”>DonnaGrayson</a> via <a href=”http://photopin.com”>photopin</a> <a href=”http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/2.0/”>cc</a>
photo credit: <a href=”http://www.flickr.com/photos/zachklein/54389823/”>Zach Klein</a> via <a href=”http://photopin.com”>photopin</a> <a href=”http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/”>cc</a>
photo credit: <a href=”http://www.flickr.com/photos/mediaflex/4807811869/”>joshjanssen</a> via <a href=”http://photopin.com”>photopin</a> <a href=”http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/2.0/”>cc</a>
photo credit: <a href=”http://www.flickr.com/photos/mfakheri/2986166090/”>mohammadali</a> via <a href=”http://photopin.com”>photopin</a> <a href=”http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.0/”>cc</a>
